Hyper-V and AD Agents

[Ldoodle]

Hiya, We have these 2 agents and i'm a bit confused about their usage. Symantec's website says the Hyper-V agent can be used to restore individual virtual files and folders from within VMs, yet when I try and select files and folders inside the Hyper-V agent in the selection window, it only offers me complete VHD files, not files and folders within those VHD files. Also, with the Active Directory agent, when trying to drill down inside a domain controller in the selection window, it doesn't offer me anything. I assume that's because I need to install a RAWS agent on the domain controller, but then do I need a RAWS agent for each domain controller or does the Active Directory agent allow an unlimited number of DC's to have the agent installed. The term 'Active Directory' agent to me suggests the latter. Can anyone confirm. Thanks

[pkh]

For the Hyper-V agent, did you enable GRT when you backup the VM's.

The AD agent allows you to restore individual AD object.  Without it, you have to restore the entire AD to get back a deleted AD object.  You can only install the ADRA on as many DC's as you have licences.  When you install the ADRA, you install the AD agent licence on the media server and then push out the BE remote to the DC.

[RahulG]

First of all you need to make sure you have select the GRt optionin the backup Job properties .
I beleive you are looking for the files at wrong place .To use GRT, you must select the individual files and folders that you want to restore from the list that appears when you expand the Netbios name or the computer name of the virtual machine. You cannot select individual folders and files from the virtual machines that appear when you expand the Virtual Machines node.
Some documentation for yur reference
http://support.veritas.com/docs/342422
http://support.veritas.com/docs/342423
http://support.veritas.com/docs/342010.
http://support.veritas.com/docs/342400

You need to install remote agent on the Domian controller and when you need to backup system state with the Grt option selected
http://support.veritas.com/docs/340843
Have a look on the following document to know how the ADRA option works
http://support.veritas.com/docs/342671

[Ldoodle]

That is the problem. I am led to believe, from Symantec's wordiing on their website regarding the Hyper-V agent, that you can do file/folder level restores without the need for a normal RAWS agent 'inside' the virtual machine, yet you say we need to expand the actual NetBIOS name of the servers to backup/restore individual files/folders but we can't do this as they don't have RAWS agents installed.

We also have GRT enabled in the Hyper-V section for the backup jobs.

We didn't bother getting normal RAWS agents for the virtual machines as we were led to believe the Hyper-V agent would give us the same functionality, not just back up entire VHD files. The below is lifted from the Symantec website; I have highlighted the important bits in bold. What you say completely contradicts this statement!

The new, enhanced Backup Exec 2010 Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V provides a single agent to support a unlimited number of virtual guests running on a Windows Server 2008 R2 machine while protecting existing physical server files and Windows applications. Backup Exec 2010 can quickly restore individual virtual files and folders from a single image-level backup - eliminating the time and storage requirements of a second file level backup.

• Single, comprehensive backup application for virtual systems and legacy physical systems
• Complete Windows data protection for new Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V systems R2 including LiveMigration
• One agent delivering affordable data protection to an unlimited number of Microsoft virtual systems
• Comprehensive backup application for virtual systems and legacy physical systems supporting disk and tape storage environments

Clicking the first link you gave, it says you do need to do it at the server level to do individual file/folder level restores, but no where on the Hyper-V agent webpage does it say you need to have a RAWS agent to achieve this functionality.

How do these companies get away with blatant fraud!

[Colin_Weaver]

Hi there

For File System GRT in Hyper-V and VMware ESX Virtual machines, you do not need the remote agent installed to do the backup and have the abiltiy to do a GRT restore. However to actaully do the restore to the original machine (or in fact another virtual machine) the remote agent must be present - that said you can redirect the restore to a folder on another server (say the media server itself) that has RAWS installed and then manually copty the files back to your virtual server if you don't want to install the remote agent.

For information The Administration Guide - which is available on our website at: http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/358200
Has an Appendix covering Hyper-V. In the appendix on Page 1171 is a section that is called "Requirements for using the Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V" Towards the bottom of this section on pages 1172/3 is the following text:

The Remote Agent for Windows Systems must be installed on the virtual machine
to do the following:

■ Enable individual files and folders to be restored back to the original virtual
machine.
■ Enable individual SQL databases to be restored back to the original virtual
machine.
■ Enable individual Exchange items to be restored back to the original virtual
machine.
■ Enable individual Active Directory objects to be restored back to the original
virtual machine.

As such this information is available in a public document - in this case the Manual / Admin Guide for Backup Exec itself.


EDIT: IMPORTANT INFORMATION - if you bought either the Hyper-V Agent or the VMWare Agent you are licensed to install the Remote Agent for Windows into the Virtual Machines - you don't need to buy more licenses unless Active Directory, Exchange or SQL is installed inside the Virtual Machine and you want to do application GRT and for these options you buy the appropriate agent license (not the standard remote agent license) but need RAWS installed inside the virtual machine to do the backup as well as the restore.